About this Research Topic

Background

The appearance of new types of illnesses and complex biological threats due to humans' lifestyles and the advent of new types of pathogens, e.g., the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, raised an urgent demand for developing practical detection configurations and treatment protocols. This includes the identification of disease biomarkers, pathogens, and biological substrates. Furthermore, there is a growing need for smart drug delivery, including advanced nano-based drug delivery systems based on non-toxic nanocarriers. The design and fabrication of such vital tools could help healthcare authorities to provide each patient with the most efficient treatment. Directly monitoring conditions of a patient or determining the presence of pathogens within their biological samples, along with using a practical targeting tool that can specifically attack the target molecule/pathogen or improve the drug's effectiveness by minimizing its side effects, would be greatly beneficial to the field. Furthermore, these nanotechnological configurations could address the drawback of common treatment platforms and current therapeutics with more efficient treatment techniques based on up-to-date dynamic data from biological substrates. Enhanced pathogenesis due to mutations in pathogens or hosts, along with the introduction of complex hazardous chemical compounds into human life, may lead to the appearance of novel diseases.

To overcome such challenges, healthcare authorities require practical diagnostic configurations to monitor specific people’s conditions and identify the presence of specific pathogens, biomolecules, or target chemical compounds within the body to take targeted action. More rapid tests, especially those which could be applied at frontlines, would be a priority. Additionally, these data should be applied to advanced drug delivery systems (DDSs) toward wise drug delivery to eliminate the disease sources within the body with the least side effects. Therefore, many attempts have been conducted to develop novel diagnostic configurations and advanced DDSs to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of common treatment protocols. These tools are game-changing equipment that provides therapists with specific information to take action based on the obtained data from biological specimens to consider the most effective therapy at the exact time.

The scope of this Research Topic covers a wide range of diagnostic and drug delivery configurations toward effective treatment of patients; the considered topics are as follow and include both experimental original data and review papers:

Diagnostic scope:
I. Development of novel nano/biosensors toward detecting biomolecules, pathogens, chemicals, ions, and disease biomarkers within biological substrates.
II. Detection of pathogens, i.e., virus, bacteria, and fungi, and target biomolecules in biological media using advanced sensor configurations, viz., Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), resonance, electrochemical, piezoelectric, immunological, genetic, molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), and optical sensors.
III. Development of practical detection approaches with new mechanisms.

Therapeutic scope:
I. Design and development of advanced drug delivery systems based on 1D and 2D nanomaterials.
II. Development of quantum dots for drug delivery systems.
III. Stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems.

Keywords: Biosensor, nanosensor, diagnostic configurations, drug delivery systems, advanced therapy.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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